


Mad, Madder, Maddest

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: The Beatles
Genre: 1964, Birthday Party, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, john lennon's a+ parenting, paul mccartney/john lennon ust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: April 1964. In the middle of filming ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, the boys take a night off to celebrate John’s son’s first birthday.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something from me to give thanks for the fact that on this day 76 years ago John Winston Lennon graced the world with his presence. 
> 
> (...and happy 5th anniversary Sir Paul, you radiant weirdo, you.)
> 
> Thanks to stardust_made for giving this the green light, and also for writing John so well that I picked up on his mannerisms here, you know the ones I mean ;-)
> 
> [Posted here at my LJ along with some photos ♥](http://canonisrelative.livejournal.com/87009.html)

April, 1964

 

Their days were mad, their nights madder. 

It was near impossible to believe that it had been a year – a whole year, only a year – since John shouted them all awake then spent the rest of the day pissed and out of his mind. 

“There he is, hullo birthday boy!” Paul grinned when Cynthia opened the door, holding out his arms to take the fussy, red-faced child out of her hands. Bouncing Julian on his hip he tried to make him laugh while Cyn, looking exhausted under the smile painted onto her face, took the brightly-wrapped parcel from Jane and led them into the house.

“There’s daddy,” Paul said when they got to the kitchen, taking Jules’s pudgy little hand and helping him point across the room, point at John where he leaned against the window with a drink in his hand. “Wave hello to daddy.”

“Knock it off, Paul, he doesn’t understand a bloody word.”

“Shut up,” Paul said from behind his bright smile, carrying on talking to Julian, “Just because your daddy’s a miserable old codger, we won’t let him spoil our fun, will we, son?”

Julian screwed up his face and began to wail right into his ear, a godawful piercing noise you wouldn’t think could come from such a little body, and Paul gladly passed him off to his mum. Cyn and Jane disappeared out of the room, and Julian’s cries grew fainter. Crossing over to John, rubbing at his wounded ear, Paul held out the bottle he’d brought. “Many happy returns.”

John barked a laugh, took the bottle from Paul and without looking to see what it was tipped a generous pour into his not-nearly-empty glass. “You know Cyn says she hasn’t slept a wink yet this week, he’s been that horrible. I believe her too, she looks a right--” John cut himself off, looked away.

They’d come home last night, Brian had fixed it for them, a day off from filming for Julian’s birthday and only Ringo due back tomorrow for his lonesome scene. Paul had been deeply grateful, he was tired and he was missing Jane and, strange since the boy wasn’t his, he’d been missing Julian. 

“Anyroad,” John said, shaking himself, turning to Paul with a cheeky grin and an empty glass. “For gracing the youngest Lennon with your presence on this fine day, we thank you. How many better invitations did you turn down just to turn up here?”

“Oh, you know, only the one, but the Royal Mum is an understanding sort of a girl, she wasn’t much fussed. Where’s the others?”

“Eppy’s not coming,” John said, passing Paul the bottle. “You’re the first. Think Mal’s coming with Rings and Neil said he’d be late.” John smirked. “Some business with mummy Mona to sort out, I reckon.”

Paul rolled his eyes and knocked his glass against John’s, a rough sort of cheers that nearly sloshed his drink over the side of his glass, but it drew John’s eyes to him.

“Happy deathday to me,” John said, holding his gaze.

“Happy birthday to Jules.” Paul didn’t blink, lifted his glass and took a long drink. “And congratulations to you.”

John turned, looming over where Paul was leaning against the counter. “If you’re thinking congratulations are in order, I might have a suggestion for you, son, just a thing or two that might make me feel well and truly congratulated, like.”

“A thing or two that won’t lead to a repeat performance of this here celebration of birth, you mean,” Paul said, lowering his voice but not his eyes. He’d figured John for drinking but he hadn’t figured him for drunk. A year ago this very day John had cornered him after the show at the Leyton Baths and when Paul tried to tell him no, as he had done since the wedding seven months before, John had slammed him into the wall and told him he knew a hundred birds who’d beg to take a bastard off him, if Paul was too good to put his pretty mouth to good use. Paul thought that John might have still been feeling that particular hangover when they went home three days later to meet his son.

“And he’s a comedian now,” John said, voice gone to that teasing purr that meant nothing but trouble and set Paul’s nerves all abuzz.

“Johnny, come on,” he said, nudging at John to get a little space, standing up and reaching for the bottle though his glass was far from dry. “This is Julian’s do, you wait your turn, eh?”

“Oh ho, so you’re saying that come October I’ll be getting my fair treatment, is that what two-faced-Macca is saying, is it now?”

“If you’re a good lad until then,” Paul said, patting John’s cheek.

John only lifted his eyebrows, devilish smirk on his lips, and then the bell rang again. Before John went to answer it he set down his drink, folded his chilly fingers around Paul’s arm, and leaned in to knock his forehead against Paul’s. Paul snatched at John’s shirt but John was already slipping away, grinning back at him, going to open the door. 

He opened the door and in came Ringo and George and the girls and all of a sudden it was a party – drinks and laughs and the old-but-never-worn jokes that made up the backbone of their mad life and not for the first time, not even the first time this week, Paul found himself marvelling. At this, at all of this. Where they were, how far they’d come, their success, sure, books could be written. But really the marvellous thing was this, was – ‘Good to see you Richy, pity you’ve got to go alone tomorrow, aye I’ll drink to that,’ – and thinking how he was always glad to see these people, all eight days a week as Ringo would have it. 

Paul’s chest swelled with joy and a fierce kind of gratitude. Things hadn’t fallen apart yet, nevermind America and John having a kid and the four of them turning themselves into actors, they were still _them_ and the bubble was nowhere near to bursting.

“What’s all this, then?” Paul asked, taking the bottle George carried in. “This for me? Is it my birthday too?”

“Julian won’t mind if we start without him, will he? Ta,” George added as Paul poured him a drink.

Cynthia reappeared then, slipped under John’s arm with a tired smile. “Mimi’s got him upstairs, he’s sleepy.”

Paul lifted his eyebrows at John – _Mimi’s here?_ – John just shrugged and lifted his glass. “While we’ve got a moment of peace, may I propose a toast. To the Boy Wonder; the Heir Apparent. May he have Cynthia’s good nature. My talent. Paul’s looks. Ringo’s smile. And George’s…well, we’ll let Georgie dress him and style his hair and he’ll never be lacking, eh lads?”

Paul laughed as he turned to George, toasting him with a wink. “My looks and your dress sense, he’s doomed.”

“A right goner,” George agreed, and everyone laughed, and drank, and celebrated.

Later, Julian made an appearance with lines still pressed on his face from his knitted blanket, thumb in his mouth and an awed, quiet look in the eyes that were so much like his father’s it knocked Paul back a bit when he hadn’t seen the boy for awhile. They all gathered round to open some of the presents brought for him, among them a rainbow-coloured xylophone on a pull-string that Jules took to with much enthusiasm.

“Thanks for that,” John called across the room to him, fingers in his ears. Paul grinned back with a thumbs up, then led the room in a standing ovation when Julian finally grew tired of the thing. 

Cynthia took him on the rounds then to get petted and cooed over by the guests, by now much multiplied and rather raucous, and Jane was just beginning to say that she was tired and could they go soon, she’d like to spend Paul’s first free evening in weeks somewhere they could be alone, when Paul looked up, caught sight of Cynthia standing in the hallway door with John beside her. John had his hand on Julian’s head, a tender touch, hesitant but tender. As Paul watched he bent to kiss Julian’s cheek, then Cynthia’s, straightening just as Cyn’s eyes flickered over to Paul, where he was walking towards them.

“Night night, darling boy,” Paul said, kissing Julian’s downy head. “Sweet dreams, Julian.” He put his arm around Cynthia’s waist and pecked her cheek, smiling at her and at John. “Congratulations, again.”

“Yeah, yeah.” John elbowed Paul roughly, making him nearly trip over the rucked up rug in the hallway. “Get off me wife and go get your own, you beggar.”

The Lennons went upstairs then, and Paul left with Jane. The next day he heard that Ringo was so wrecked from whatever the rest had got up to afterwards that the day’s filming had been a disaster, and he called round John’s place for tea, hoping to catch him alone. 

There was no ‘alone,’ of course there wasn’t, naïve to think that there would ever, for any of them, be such a thing anymore as ‘alone.’ The house seemed crowded with faces that Paul couldn’t care less about, noise and voices and deafening nonsense. If there hadn’t been _that_ between them that made the suggestion impossible, Paul would have begged John just to come in to the bathroom with him, lock the door against the outside world simply so that they could hear themselves think over the din. 

“Six months, Macca,” John had called over his shoulder, following Cynthia up the stairs to put Julian to bed. “You’ve got six months to my birthday, be ready, all right?”

Mad, it was, and getting madder. Days, nights, years, everything in between, all of it at once. Mad, madder, maddest…and still the band played on.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Celebrate anywhere you like](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9305240) by [Canon_Is_Relative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative)




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